Dan Schutte 2: "Holy Darkness" and Songs of Suffering

During the workshop, Schutte had us all sing his "Holy Darkness", based on the writings of St. John of the Cross. The refrain begins with the lovely blessing, "Holy darkness, blessed night, heaven's answer hidden from our sight", and the first stanza is quite beautiful: "I have tried you in fires of affliction; I have taught your soul to grieve. In the barren soil of your loneliness there I will plant my seed." (Please write Oregon Catholic Press for the full score, Catalog #9906 for SATB arrangement and "assembly edition"—words and melody only.) We had sung several other songs and then politely waited for his comments, but at the end of this performance, everyone clapped. I think we were relieved that someone has written a song about depression and suffering, when all the rage right now is how happy we are and how Jesus satisfies our suburban dream.

What songs about suffering does the American church sing on a regular basis? We have the songs of Passion Week, of course. We have "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God", with its implied suffering: "Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also. The body they may kill; God's truth abideth still…" But I don't think we have enough songs that acknowledge our suffering and allow us to hallow it. We will all suffer; we are all in big trouble if we have not been prepared with hymns that grant us strength of character to withstand it.

My favorite song of suffering is Bonhoeffer's "By Gracious Powers So Wonderfully Sheltered", especially the stanza, "And when this cup You give is filled to brimming with bitter suffering, hard to understand, we take it thankfully and without trembling, out of so good and so beloved a hand."

A few rounds of "Kyrie Eleison" never hurt either. I feel the American suburban churches are so complacent that whenever I play a "Kyrie Eleison" or "Agnus Dei" during a service, I try to make the organ wail. If somebody won't cry, then something has to cry. And perhaps it gives people a chance, however fleeting, to acknowledge there may be tears inside themselves, now or later.

Dan Schutte 1: Listening to Scripture

Despite my not having written on this blog for some months, hymn activity has hardly slowed!

I just came back from the Hymn Society National Conference in Greencastle, Indiana. Where else can you rub shoulders with great text and tune writers, have three snack breaks plus three meal breaks per day, and sing for hours every morning and afternoon?

Thursday morning, the final day of the five-day conference, I was much too groggy to introduce myself to even one new person, but I enjoyed at least listening to Dan Schutte, a composer whose works I've been singing since age nine. He gave a workshop on the Spirituality of Hymn Writing.

One of the things I appreciate most about Dan is his attentiveness to Scripture. He said that when he writes a new song, he often (always?) opens about eight translations of a scriptural text. Listening to language prompts him to develop certain metaphors for God or Christian experience which are only hinted at or bypassed in some translations, more fully expressed in others.

This philosophy of hymn writing is completely different from what I've encountered in the writings of Ruth Duck and Brian Wren, as exemplified in Wren's hymn, "Bring Many Names." Briefly, the Duck/Wren philosophies of hymn writing state that Scripture is culturally bound and therefore does not have ultimate authority in determining how we address God; rather, the Spirit releases us to find new names for God in our new age of Christian history. This puts tremendous emphasis on the individual's perception of God rather than on God's revelation of Himself.